


Unrequited love?

by Demidemon



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Domestic, Domestic af, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Just read it okay?, M/M, Mutual Pining, a little bit angsty, author doesn't know how to tag shit, but I mean there is tears..., except the lovers part doesn't really happen in this fic..., kinda long for a oneshot but I'm posting it as a oneshot, like pretty minimal, they both think the other one isn't interested
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 20:38:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10998549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demidemon/pseuds/Demidemon
Summary: Dan and Phil are best friends and while both of them want to be more than just friends, neither are willing to risk the relationship they have by telling the other that they want to be more than they are. The truth ends up coming out when Phil finds a bunch of fluffy phanart on Dan's laptop.





	Unrequited love?

**Author's Note:**

> This is another "we weren't doing anything in my calculus class so I wrote this" fic... gosh I should make it a collection... please read and review 
> 
> As per usual, I own only the plot. The characters are legit people who I haven't even met irl. 
> 
> Enjoy!!! (˶‾᷄ ⁻̫ ‾᷅˵)

Dan was on one of his regular internet binges. Not doing anything particular, he was scrolling aimlessly through tumblr. As sometimes happened, he found himself searching the amazingphil and danisnotonfire tag on the website. He laughed at the strange and badly done edits of him mostly some variation of a mockery of his neck-chin face. He was never going to live that face down. He grinned at the more simplistic edits; pastel and punk edits still appeared even though him and Phil had already done videos of the edits “in real life”. It seemed the fan base prefered him as a pastel edit and phil as a punk rather than both of them being one. Soon he had moved on to Phil’s tag. The fanart and edits of his friend always seemed a bit nicer. Less dicks and sexual situations and more sunny adorable Phil just being Phil. Dan supposed he kind of asked for it with his dirtier sense of humor and frequent innuendos. He smiled at the colorful representations of Phil. Even after having known the dork for eight years now, he still marvelled at the perfection of his best friend. His admiration of the man hadn’t gone unnoticed by the fandom, as he was reminded when several panels of “heart eyes Howell” scrolled onto his screen. Once Dan would have turned red at the screenshotted evidence of his crush, but now he simply smiled with fondness at recalling the moments in which he had fallen for Phil all over again. After several more minutes of scrolling, Dan decided to switch to a new tag. He didn’t normally search the “Phan” tag as it was often more than he was prepared to handle mentally or emotionally. Right now however, feeling lonely with Phil out of the house, Dan determined that whatever pain it might invoke with the fictitious nature of the relationship, it would be worth it to just pretend that Phil felt the same as he did. He typed the letters out deliberately with a single hand as his other was occupied in being laid upon and Dan didn’t think a four letter word was reason enough to sit up. He hadn’t slept much the night before and the energy it would take to sit up seemed like an impossible amount. A mixture of sadness and fondness filled Dan as he scrolled through pages of fanart and photographs; him and phil holding hands, hugging, and kissing as well as some more compromising possitions. Staring at the screen of his laptop as well as the content feeling invoked by the images was slowly lulling dan to the sleep he had missed out on the night before. Dan found himself blinking for longer and longer periods of time. And soon he had surrendered to a deep and dreamless sleep, his laptop still open on his stomach. 

Phil was nearly home from the store, his arms filled with shopping bags. Him and dan had both been neglecting the shopping, but phil had finally been convinced to go when he found himself eating crunchy chow mein noodles in apple juice as a replacement for milk and cereal that morning. He entered the apartment and called out to dan, but heard no response. As he ventured further inside he saw Dan sprawled awkwardly over the couch, eyes closed, mouth opened, with his laptop still open on his chest. Phil smiled to himself at the sight of Dan passed out on their couch. He stumbled the rest of the way into the kitchen to dump the bags of food on the counter and then returned to the main room. He had heard Dan pacing late last night and knew he needed sleep. Phil moved Dans laptop, the screen of which had some time ago timed out and gone black, onto the coffee table to the side of the couch and then carefully scooped up his roommate into his arms to carry him to his bed. He relished in the sweet domesticity of the act, smiling down at the younger man’s face. Dan moved in his sleep almost knocking Phil off balance as he curled subconsciously into Phil’s chest. Phil let out a soft chuckle at the innocent need for closeness as he entered Dan’s room. He set his friend down gently on the bed, but Dan had curled his arms around Phil’s middle and didn't let go. Phil wished it was a conscious movement; that Dan knew that it was him and still held tightly in an attempt to make him stay. He wished that Dan and he could be more than friends, but he knew Dan was straight and didn't want to make his friend uncomfortable, so he would settle for the domesticity and close friendship that they did share. Phil carefully removed Dans arms from around his body, pushed his hair out of his eyes, and tucked a blanket around his sleeping form. Phil carefully slid off of the bed leaving Dan curling towards the empty space that he had filled only a moment ago, still seeking Phil’s form beside him. Phil smiled, but the smile was complemented by oblique eyebrows, the trademark feature of sadness. 

Dan’s eyes fluttered open as he woke hazily from a dreamless sleep. He looked with concern to the empty side of his bed. It felt empty. Too empty, like there was something, someone, that was supposed to be there and wasn't. As his brain began return to normal function, he wondered why the initial sense of confusion had plagued him. He always slept alone. Dan’s eyes wandered upward, straying off of the bed to see Phil standing there seeming zoned out, his features slightly twisted in a mixture of bitterness and contentment. At the back of Dan’s mind he recognized that this was most definitely the “who” that had seemed so distinctly absent from his side when he woke up. Phil seemed to snap out of his thoughts and realize that Dan had woken up. Phil's normally pale face was turning red and Dan felt his own face turning hot as well. “Uh sorry. You just fell asleep on the couch while I was out and I heard you pacing last night so I just figured you needed the rest…” Phil grumbled. Dan smiled nervously at him. “Well… thanks.” Phil’s face turned even redder and dan wondered why he was embarrassed. Dan was the one who had fallen asleep on the couch… looking at tumblr… sudden realization hit Dan as he remembered that he had been scrolling through the phan tag when he had fallen asleep. Phil must've come back from getting groceries to find him passed out on the couch with his computer opened to hundreds of images of him and Phil as a couple. No wonder Phil looked awkward. No wonder he was blushing and avoiding Dan's eyes. The bittersweet smile must be for the end of their friendship. Oh god, what had he done. All because he couldn't deal with Phil being gone for forty fucking minutes to buy groceries. He had ruined everything.

“Dan are you okay?” Dan had gone from blushing smiles to a suddenly panicked look, his reddened face fading to white, and Phil thought he could even see his eyes tearing up. Phil rushed to Dan's side, climbing on the bed next to his friend and wrapping an arm around his shoulders pulling him to his chest. “‘M fine” Dan stated, but his voice seemed significantly higher than normal and the assurance didn't assuage Phil’s worry in the least bit. “No you're not. What's wrong bear?” Phil asked, trying to remain calm as his hands, of their own volition had begun to rub in circles across Dan’s back. Dan opened his mouth as though to reply, but the silence that had followed Phil’s question survived for several seconds as Dan seemed unable to decide what to say. Finally he squeaked out a terrified sounding “So… you’re not upset? You’re not going to leave me?” Phil’s eyebrows scrunched together above his glasses frames. “What do you mean? Why would I be upset?” Phil asked, concern still the main quality evident in his voice. When Dan didn’t respond he continued “Dan, you are the best person in my life. Even though we might bicker sometimes, you could never do anything that would make me upset enough to leave you.” quieter, actually silent, only in his mind, Phil finished the sentence with “because I love you.” Dan seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as Phil wrapped his arms around his friend once again. Dan still hadn’t given the reason that Phil might be upset with him and Phil was beginning to write it off as a bad dream. He understood. He had that sort of dream sometimes. Although his were generally Dan leaving him because he found out about how Phil felt. He was so scared that Dan would learn that Phil wanted him as more than a friend, and he would leave. Those were some of Phil’s worst nightmares, so he understood why Dan would be upset, what he didn’t understand was what Dan could possibly think was so horrible that Phil would ever leave him. As Dan calmed down, Phil combed his hair back over his forehead, hesitant to pull away from the intimate contact, but knowing he should let Dan get some more rest. “I’m going to go make some lunch. How about you try to get some sleep and I’ll wake you up when food’s ready. Okay?” Phil suggested. Dan still looked worried, but slightly more at ease as Phil stood to leave. “Okay...love” Dan said. The last word was so quiet that Phil wasn’t sure he had heard it, but he refrained from turning back to ask Dan about it. Instead he just smiled back, offering reassurance to his friend that everything was still fine between them. As Phil walked back toward the kitchen to put away groceries and make lunch, he wondered about Dan’s strange behavior. When he had first woken up, he had seemed fine, then as he gained consciousness was when his distress had began. Phil questioned whether it was actually a dream that had scared his friend so much or whether he had been worried about some real life event. Phil was still considering this when he realized that he had set Dan’s laptop dangerously on the edge of the coffee table. Walking over to put it in a more stable position, Phil bumped the keyboard. Instantly the screen illuminated showing that he had been on tumblr when he fell asleep. Upon looking closer though, Phil was surprised to see that the tag that was pulled up was for phan. He was even more surprised to see the bar at the bottom of the screen indicating that Dan had saved images to the computer. Clicking on one of the tabs across the bottom of the screen, Phil pulled up a picture of him and Dan with arms around each other’s shoulders, Phil’s lips pressed against Dan’s cheek. Curiosity overpowering his respect for Dan’s privacy led Phil to continue to look through the folder only to find more of the same sort of image. Hundreds of fanarts of the two of them as a couple with fingers intertwined, lips locked, hands brushing knees. Fluffy sketches and even a few fanfics which Phil eventually gave in and read. The writings were sweet and as Phil read through them he couldn’t help but smile as he imagined that they were real. As he ventured deeper through the folder he found a continuity of simplistic fluff. Phil was almost surprised by the lack of smut, but he did find a few images and fics that were more than just simplistically tender. Several of them ended with one of them on one knee with a ring box. Phil’s mind was racing with the implications of the folder and Dan’s reaction. The phantom “love” that he had thought he had heard earlier seemed to gain plausibility as he thought through the happenings of the past hour. 

Dan hadn’t been able fall back asleep since Phil had left almost forty minutes ago to make lunch. He hadn’t moved from his bed, but his veins were pumping with adrenaline. He wasn’t sure what to think of Phil’s reaction. He had tried to test Phil’s reaction by calling him “love”, but his nervousness had made the endearment so quiet that he wasn’t sure that Phil had heard it at all. He just didn’t know what to think. This was kind of a big deal, but Phil seemed content to just brush it off as though nothing had changed. Whether for better or worse though, there was no way their friendship could stay the same with this revelation. Dan wondered vacantly how much Phil had really seen. What if he had also found the folder of images and fanworks that he had saved? There’s no way Phil could have been so calm if he had seen that though, so Dan brushed off the idea. Maybe he hadn’t thought anything of the phan tag either. Was it really so weird? Phil didn’t know his reasons for looking at phan. He didn’t know how it made Dan feel all warm inside and spawned butterflies in his stomach and made him smile like a complete goof. For all Phil knew, Dan was just having a good laugh. Now that he was thinking logically, he wasn’t even certain that Phil had seen what his laptop was open to. The screen on his computer could have timed out before Phil had even gotten home. This actually seemed like the most likely actuality when Dan thought about Phil’s confusion and complete lack of reaction. With this thought Dan scrambled out of bed intending to hurry and close his laptop before Phil would have another chance to learn the truth. Dan wished they could be more, but he was willing to settle for friendship if it meant that he could keep Phil in his life. He stumbled over his own feet in his haste to get to his computer, but didn’t slow down on his way to the living room. He entered and let out a small gasp as he realized he was too late. Phil was sitting on the couch where Dan had fallen asleep with Dan’s laptop on his legs. One hand was covering his mouth and when Phil turned towards Dan, Dan could see that he was crying. Wait...crying? Crap. Dan had really fucked up if it was enough to bring Phil to tears. Dan stood rigid buckling his knees to keep himself from collapsing. He felt sick. “I’m sorry” he managed to squeak out feeling tears spring to his own eyes for the second time that day. 

Phil looked up from the laptop to see Dan standing ramrod straight looking pale. A tint of green even haunting his features. “I’m sorry” Phil heard him say. His voice high pitched and anxious. It wasn’t until that moment that everything clicked for Phil. Dan was in love. Dan loved him. And he thought that Phil didn’t love him back. Phil realized he must be terrified. Phil had been scared of this same confrontation, but in his mind it had always been the other way around. Dan was the one coming to sudden realization. Phil being the one standing terrified and apologizing. “You… complete idiot.” Phil muttered, not entirely sure if the idiot he spoke of was himself or Dan. Tears were rolling down Dan’s face now, and while Phil had stopped crying, his cheeks were still wet. “I know. I know I’m an idiot Phil. I’m sorry, I just… I’m sorry. Please don’t leave… please…” Dan whispered. His voice seemed to crack on every other word and in an instant Phil was standing in front of Dan. Dan’s eyes were on the floor, his lip quivering as tears continued to run down his face. “No, not like that you idiot” Phil said with fondness before cupping a hand under the younger man’s chin to tilt his head up so Phil could press his lips to Dan’s. He felt Dan gasp in shock as Phil continued to press their lips together. “You idiot” Phil mumbled into the kiss and Phil could feel Dan’s tear-damp lips turn upward into a shaky smile as he finally began to understand and respond. The kiss was deepening and Phil felt Dan’s tongue pressing at the edges of his mouth. Without hesitation Phil opened his lips to allow Dan’s tongue to explore his mouth. Phil was surprised a moment later to realize that his own tongue had slid into Dan’s mouth without so much as a conscious thought from him. Despite the intensity, the kiss felt natural. Like coming home. They finally broke apart, but Phil let his hand linger on Dan’s chin as he gazed at Dan’s eyes. The brown irises were still bright from crying, but the edges of his eyes were crinkled with happiness. “You fucking idiot” Phil muttered drawing another shaky laugh from Dan as he replied “Yeah, but I’m your fucking idiot”


End file.
